Major General McClellan was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln and served briefly, from November 1861 to March 1862, as the general in chief of the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War. He organized the famous Army of the Potomac and was highly popular among the troops under his command. Years later from 1878 to 1881 he served as the 24th Governor of New Jersey.

Although the great majority of modern authorities assess McClellan poorly as a battlefield general, a small but vocal faction of historians maintain that he was indeed a highly capable commander, but his reputation suffered unfairly at the hands of pro-Lincoln partisans who needed a scapegoat for the Union's setbacks. His legacy therefore defies easy categorization. After the war Ulysses S. Grant was asked to evaluate McClellan as a general. He replied, "McClellan is to me one of the mysteries of the war."

George McClellan first attended the University of Pennsylvania in 1840 at age 13, resigning himself to the study of law. After two years, he changed his goal to military service and with the assistance of his father's letter to President John Tyler, George was accepted at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1842, the academy having waived its normal minimum age of 16. McClellan at age 19 graduated in 1846, second in his class of 59 cadets.

After serving in the Army eleven years McClellan resigned his commission January 16, 1857, and, capitalizing on his experience with railroad assessment, became chief engineer and vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad. Despite his business success and lucrative salary of $10,000 per year, he was frustrated with civilian employment and continued to study classical military strategy.

With the outbreak of the Civil war in May of 1861 George rejoined the military and on May 14 was commissioned a major general in the regular army. At age 34 McClellan outranked everyone in the Army other than Lt. Gen Winfield Scott. Following Scott’s retirement McClellan who was the army commander, became the general in chief in November 1861.

After the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, the single bloodiest day in American military history, General McClellan failed to pursue the Conferate Army aggressively and on November 5th President Lincoln ordered that he be removed from command. McClellan wrote to his wife, "Those in whose judgment I rely tell me that I fought the battle splendidly and that it was a masterpiece of art. ... I feel I have done all that can be asked in twice saving the country. ... I feel some little pride in having, with a beaten & demoralized army, defeated Lee so utterly.... Well, one of these days history will I trust do me justice."

McClellan was nominated by the Democrats to run against Abraham Lincoln in the 1864 Prseidential elections. Following the example of Winfield Scott, he ran as a U.S. Army general still on active duty and did not resign his commission until election day, November 8, 1864. Lincoln won the election handily.

After the war, McClellan and his family departed for a lengthy trip to Europe (from 1865 to 1868), during which he did not participate in politics. When he returned McClellan worked on engineering projects in New York City and was offered the position of president of the newly formed University of California.

McClellan was appointed chief engineer of the New York City Department of Docks in 1870. Evidently the position did not demand his full-time attention because, starting in 1872, he also served as the president of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad. He and his family returned to Europe from 1873 to 1875.

In 1877, McClellan was nominated by the Democrats for Governor of New Jersey, which took him by surprise because he had not expressed an interest in the position. He was elected and served a single term from 1878 to 1881, a tenure marked by careful, conservative executive management and minimal political rancor.

McClellan's final years were devoted to traveling and writing. He wrote of his military career in “McClellan’s Own Story.” His original draft was completed in 1881, but the only copy was destroyed by fire. He began to write another draft but died before it was half completed which was published posthumously in 1887.

General McClellan died unexpectedly at age 58 at Orange, New Jersy, after having suffered from chest pains for a few weeks. His final words, at 3 a.m., October 29, 1885, were, "I feel easy now. Thank you."
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McClellan was a hero of the Mexican War, a skilled engineer, author of maanuals on military tactics, enthusiastic admirer of Napolean, and was said to be able to bend a quarter between thumb and forefinger and heave a 250-pound man above his head. When put in charge of the Union Forces at Washington McClellan brought with him to the capital what one observer called “an indefinable air of success.”

He would need all his strengths and skills to rebuild the shattered Union army. “I found no preparations whatever for defense ...” McClellan wrote. “Not a regiment was properly encamped, not a single avenue or approach guarded. All was chaos and the streets, hotels and barrooms were filled with drunken officers and men absent from their regiments without leave--a perfect Pandemonium.”

McClellan devoted the summer to bringing order out of chaos. “I spent long days in my saddle and my nights in the office,” he remembered, “--a very fatiguing life, but one which made my power felt everywhere and by everyone.” On his tropps he imposed discipline and told them, “Let an honest pride be felt in possessing that high virtue of a soldier, obedience” --replaced inept officers with regulars, saw that the men drilled for up to eight hours a day, and laid out tidy camps around the city to incorporate the ten thousand new volunteers now arriving each week by rail.

When he staged grand reviews to improve morale, a newspaperman noted, “each regiment tried to outdo all others in it’s appearance and it’s marching, ... bands playing national airs, drums beating, flags waving.... The gound shook beneath the steady marching.” Lincoln and his wife, Mary, and their two youngest sons, Willie and Tad, often watched from a carriage. But even the Lincolns were bit players in McClellan’s drama. “It was to be observed that the eyes of the people were not on the President of the Republic ...” an officer wrote. “All the attention was on that young general with the calm eye, with the satisfied air, who moved around followed by an immense staff, to the clanking of sabers and the acclamation of the spectators.”

A hundred thousand untrained volunteers had become an army -- the Army of the Potomac, McClellan’s army. His men, who loved him for having made them proud of themselves again, called him “Little Mac.” The newspapers called him “Young Napolean,” and he actively encouraged the comparison. “Soldiers!” he had proclaimed to his troops in western Virginia in true Napoleonic fashion. “I have heard that there was danger here. I have come to place myself at your head and to share it with you. I fear now but one thing--that you will not find foemen worthy of your steel.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne [famous author] witnessed the soldiers’ enthusiasm for their new commander: “They received him with loud shouts, by the eager uproar of which--now near, now in the center, now on the outskirts of the division--we could trace his progress through the ranks ... they believed in him, and so did I.”3346
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George McClellan was one of at least seven Generals chosen by Lincoln to lead the Union Army before General Ulysses S. Grant. McClellan was actually called on a second time to the top command after the reassignment of General John Pope.3347
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General McClellan was a fourth cousin, once removed to Civil War General John Gibbon who commanded a division in the United States Army, and was wounded at Gettysburg while in command of Hancock’s corps. There is more about John Gibbon in this database.3
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Henry Brainerd McClellan [was] a first cousin of Major General George B. McClellan of the Union army. Confederate Army Officer, Author, Educator. He was a graduate of Williams College where he studied with the intention of entering the ministry. However, pre-war he was involved in education which subsequently became his life long vocation.

Upon the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted as a Private in the 3rd Virginia Cavalry. He was later commissioned and served as adjutant of the 3rd Virginia. In April 1863 he was appointed Assistant Adjutant General on the staff of Major General J.E.B. Stuart, and rose to the rank of Major while serving in this staff position.

Two days after the death of General Stuart, Henry McClellan was assigned to the staff of General Robert E. Lee, where he served for three months. He then served on the staff of General Wade Hampton as Adjutant General and Chief of Staff.

In 1870 he moved to Lexington, Kentucky where he opened and operated the Sayre Female Institute. He left a memoir, which was published as "I Rode With Jeb Stuart", a classic account of the cavalry corps of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Birth: Oct. 17, 1840
Pennsylvania, USA
Death: Oct. 1, 1904
Lexington
Fayette County
Kentucky, USA315
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